Preferred Citation: Ramanujan, A. K. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Berkeley London:  University of California Press,  c1997 1997. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft067n99wt/

 
Dumma and Dummi

Comments:

This tale about little people scaring off a big tiger is a tale told to very small children. Eating too much and breaking wind in a big way, even exploding a pumpkin with the fart, especially appeals to the scatological fancies of small children. As Martha Wolfenstein points out in her 1954 book, Children's Humor, children of five or six love to make (and hear) jokes about peeing, shitting, farting, etc. See also No. 60, “The Sparrow Who Wouldn't Die,” and No. 58, “Sister Crow and Sister Sparrow.”

[NKTT, but cf. Motif F 451.3.13.3, Dwarf breaks wind so hard he capsizes canoes, and K 1727, Tiger frightened at hearing unknown wind (IO).]

Dumma and Dummi
 

Preferred Citation: Ramanujan, A. K. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Berkeley London:  University of California Press,  c1997 1997. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft067n99wt/